Venture Unleashed (The Venture Books) (6 page)

The thought of the little mud-plaster cottage he’d helped Justice build made Venture ache with memories. Justice had come to Twin Rivers to take his place as Venture’s guardian as soon as he’d completed his apprenticeship in their hometown of Calm Harbor. By that time, both of their parents were gone, and Venture had been Grant Fieldstone’s bonded servant for years—as he would be until he was nineteen and his contract was up. Justice had rented a portion of Grant Fieldstone’s property to build the house on, so that Venture could move out of the Fieldstone house to live with him, yet still be close enough to work.

“What about your work?” Venture said.

“Don’t worry about it.” Justice handed the broom to his apprentice.

Justice untied his ink-stained apron, gave the poor guy directions as to what remained to be done for the day, and called for the hired boy to get back inside and help for once.

They left the shop together and wove through the cobblestone streets, and then they began the walk up the dirt road along the sunny hillside. Justice insisted on carrying both of Venture’s bags the whole way.
 

“How’ve you been? You doing all right?”

Justice looked him over, pausing to examine the two-inch scar on the back of his head, a bumpy white line where his hair no longer grew.

Venture pulled away. “I’m fine. I haven’t broken anything else. Honestly, Justice, everything’s great.”

“Are you happy?”

“Happy?” Venture studied his brother’s face, searched it for any note of accusation, of eagerness to be proven right. But all he saw there was concern. He doubted would have told Justice if he weren’t happy. Still, when he said, “I love it,” it was the absolute truth. “I’ve learned so much, and the guys are looking out for me.”

“I worry about you, traveling the nation with Earnest and some guy I don’t even know. I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.”

Some guy
. That was just like Justice. Venture didn’t bother reminding him that guy was Champion of All Richland. He tried to put himself in Justice’s shoes. Grant Fieldstone had taken Venture on business trips along the coast of the Western and Southern Quarters, but Dasher had taken him farther from Twin Rivers than ever. They’d trained in all four of Richland’s Quarters. He’d seen the Great Mountain range, which stretched in a forbidding wall of beauty and strength along much of the Western and Northern Quarters as well as a portion of the Eastern Quarter, forming the better part of Richland’s border with the neighboring kingdoms of Gultsan and Trytlo.

“When they both get into town, we’ll have them over and you and Grace can get to know Dasher better.”

“I guess I can’t complain about you guys not knowing what you’re doing. Dasher Starson taking the All-Richland Championship again.” Justice’s voice grew grave as he said, “Still . . .”

Venture knew what Justice wanted to say—that he wished Venture would change his mind about fighting. “I know,” Venture said sharply.

He swallowed back his desire to argue his case for Justice applying for his exemption to the age limit for absolute fighting, this time in person. He’d tried enough times by letter, and Justice had outright refused. He’d half hoped Justice would compromise by asking him to wait a few more months, even a year. But Justice wouldn’t budge. He insisted that Venture would have to wait and take responsibility for making the decision to take that risk when he was of age.

A stiff silence fell between them while Venture tried not to feel the pain of the imagined stretch of four years waiting for such an opportunity. Four years might as well be forever. He wanted to throttle Justice every time he thought about it.
 

Venture took a deep breath and said, “Thanks for supporting me in this, with everything that happened, leaving Champions Center and all that.”

“Vent,” Justice said, “People are already starting to talk about you. If you keep getting better, if you move on to absolute fighting and you start winning, people are going to take notice. Important people.”

“People who won’t like what a bondsman winning the Championship might mean? So what?”

“So powerful people want things to stay just as they are. It won’t matter to them what your motives are, whether you’re just doing this for yourself or not. I don’t think you, I don’t think Grant Fieldstone even understands—”

“Why should anyone try to understand people like that? I don’t need to understand. Right now I need to train, and once I get a chance to really get out there—” He cut himself short before he could say what he really wanted to about Justice keeping him from that. “When I get out there, I just need to win.”

Justice’s jaw tensed and he looked as though he wanted to shake him.
 

Bring it on
, Venture thought. But Justice broke off his stare. He turned to look up the hillside, but not before Venture saw the deep disappointment on his face.

“Justice.” Venture put a hand on his brother’s arm. He didn’t want to fight with him; he just wanted to be home, to be happy to be home. “I need to do it. Whatever happens, I have to try.”

“How’d you get to be so stubborn?” Justice forced a smile and rumpled Venture’s short hair with his hand.

“Mom always said I was made this way, remember?”

“I remember.”

Back at the Delvings’ little house, Tory ran right to Venture and kissed him. She surprised him with a stream of perfectly formed questions. His sister-in-law, Grace squeezed his arms as though to make sure they were really there, then turned him around in front of her.
 

“How can a boy grow so much in such a short time? And what’s happened to your hair?” She reached up to rub what remained of his red-brown curls, now close-cropped.

She gasped, and Venture stiffened. He turned away, but it was too late. She’d seen the scar.

“Justice told me you’d been hit on the back of the head, but—”

“It’s fine. It’s over. I won’t go back there again.”

She nodded and gave him a hug. “Take your coat off.” She tugged at his sleeve. “And let me see the rest of you.”

He grinned sheepishly as she looked him over.

“What are we going to do with you? By the time you’re grown you’ll be some kind of hulking monstrosity.”

“Grace!”

“Oh, you know I’m only kidding. You look every bit a fine young man.”

Venture stayed up late with his family, and then, when it was later still, and everyone else had fallen asleep, he lay awake. The curtains were drawn across the little nook in the main room, into which his bed was built. He should be sleeping soundly in his old bed, but the knowledge that tomorrow he would go over to the Big House—and that Jade would be there—crowded out his would-be dreams.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN

Venture pulled his hat on a little tighter and eyed the heavy black clouds above as he made his way to the servants’ entrance of the Big House. Grant’s dog, Lightning, who Venture had raised from a pup, came bounding out of nowhere and nearly knocked him over. She wouldn’t stay down, so he knelt and hugged her. Venture tried to get a word in here and there about how he’d missed her and whether she’d been a good dog, but her barking and her happy squeals drowned out his words.

The other servants heard Lightning’s greeting and came rushing out of the service courtyard, from the garden and the stables. Able, the servant who’d roomed with Venture after his mother died, gave Venture’s shoulders a quick squeeze, then took Lightning by the scruff of her neck. In his quiet, firm way, he calmed her down so that Mrs. Bright, the cook, could take her place smothering Venture.

“You’re so big,” she kept saying. “You’re so big.” When she let him go, she had to wipe her eyes with her apron.

“I’m back ’til Winter’s Third Month.”

She sniffed. “That’s what Master said. Oh, he can’t wait to see you either. You’d better hurry in and say hello to him.”

 
Venture was barely through the kitchen when Grant came to him and grasped his hand in a firm shake, clapping his other hand onto his shoulder. They sat in the den and talked like they used to, and it was good and strange to be home again.

“Venture,” Grant said, rubbing his hands over the padded arms of his chair and taking on a serious tone, “there are new rumors about Wisecarver. About Longlake.”

Venture frowned at the mention of Wisecarver, Representative of Springriver County, and Prowess Longlake, his Crested friend and former High Judge. “I know they’re back at it. What have they told to you, sir?” he said protectively.

Nothing had been made public yet; the rumors were circulating only among a few at the top of the fighting world. Venture doubted he would’ve known anything about them himself if he weren’t training with Richland’s current champion. Grant wouldn’t be aware of Longlake’s plan unless Longlake or Wisecarver had contacted him themselves.

“Don’t worry about me. I can handle things here.”

“What about business?” The luxury resorts Grant owned catered to people of Society, many of them friends of Cresteds, some of them Crested themselves.

“I provide services for my clientele like no one else does. This hasn’t changed that.”

Venture wasn’t so sure about that. Cresteds enjoyed special privileges as the descendants of the greatest warriors of the old Wartimes—privileges based on that history as well as the popular belief that this highest class, who trained only among themselves and closely guarded the secrets of their knowledge, could protect the rest of Richland in a way that they never could themselves. The increasing skill of Uncrested fighters and the growing popular adoration for the Uncrested champions threatened that belief.

“But they’re still pressuring you, sir. Maybe pressuring your patrons, too.”

“I only brought it up so I could assure you that you still have my full support. When your mother came to work for me, I promised to have you trained for a suitable career. And this seems to be the career that suits you, whether it flies in the face of Society’s expectations or not. But it’s only right to let you know the risk for you, before you decide how to proceed. You’ve heard that they want to do away with the Championship?”

“They’ll never do it. It’s too popular. What does everyone have an opinion about, aside from who’s the best fighter, who’ll win the next Championship?”

“But the people only vote directly on local legislation. For national matters, we have to rely on our representatives. Only time will tell how many of them care more for silver than for being reelected. The Cresteds may not like to involve themselves publicly in such debates, and they might prefer to say that these are Uncrested ideas, not theirs, but they have deep pockets.”

Venture got up from his cushion and started to pace. “Once they get rid of the Championship—”

“And disband the fighting Commission and every competition it oversees.”

“They’ll have crippled the sport, beyond . . .” Venture lifted his hands, then let them drop to his sides. If that happened, there would be no career for Venture. No hope for a Champion’s prize. No hope of ever being a man with the means to court a lady like Jade.

“They’d find it easier then, to outlaw competition, as it would be unregulated, more dangerous. But—it may never happen, any of it,” Grant said. “There are men among the Cresteds, wiser men, who have no desire to enflame the public against them. Perhaps the others will listen to them.”

Thunder roared and lightning cracked, followed by a fierce pelting of rain against the roof. The dog, Lightning, cowered in a corner and bared her teeth at the storm, fur standing on end. The horses snorted and stamped their feet and Venture gently shushed and patted them. He was glad for the sturdy walls and the well-maintained roof of the stable. The cattle barn was probably leaking now; Grant had already told him he’d be working on its roof this week.

He was also glad for the storm, which suited his mood. He couldn’t get his worries about the Crested opposition out of his mind. And then there was Jade. It was afternoon already, and there hadn’t been a mention of her name, not a glimpse of her, and he hadn’t had the nerve to ask after her. They’d both promised to have nothing to do with each other beyond what was proper between a lady and her father’s servant, in exchange for Justice’s consent to let Venture be a fighter. But everyone else had been eager to see him, to talk to him. It wouldn’t have been difficult for her to do the same, promise or no promise.

Venture carried on with cleaning the tack—until the stable door flew open. The giddy shrieks and giggles of girls blew in with the wet wind. He straightened up abruptly, hung the bridle on the wall, and stepped out of the tack room to have a look. There, backs pressed against the stable door they had just pushed shut—as though it took a great effort to keep it there—were two very wet girls, shivering and shaking with laughter. The taller redhead took a deep breath, then looked over at the other girl, whose long, dripping locks hung over her entire face like the head of a mop, and shrieked again with uncontrollable laughter.

“I think my dress is actually melted,” the mop-headed girl heaved between giddy near-sobs.

At the sound of her voice, Lightning barked and Venture stopped mid-breath. Jade flipped her head down and then back, shaking the tangled web of sopping hair over her shoulders. She raked the remaining strands off her face with her fingers. Her eyes danced out over the bales of hay, and came to rest on him.
 

“Venture!” Jade clapped one hand to her chest, the other over her gaping mouth.

“Hello, Miss.” He gave her a little bow, and surprised himself by having the presence of mind to give another to the other young lady.

“Jade, who’s this?” the redhead asked, a little calmer, but giggling still.

“Venture Delving, Miss. I’m a servant in this house.” Though he dared not step nearer, with his pants stained and his boots caked with manure, he introduced himself, for Jade seemed unable to speak.

Lightning nudged at Jade’s skirt, and Jade patted her head distractedly, but her eyes never left Venture.

“I haven’t seen you before. Are you new?” The other girl eyed him with interest.